A Socially Distanced Holiday Activity for the Whole Family

Maybe everyone has already done this in 2020 but… I feel called to bring it out one more time for the holidays.

MAKE A GROUP PLAYLIST!

My family did this earlier in the pandemic and we got the idea from some friends of ours.  It was a lot of fun AND created something that the whole family can enjoy all throughout the year.

Step 1:
Gather together your list of family/ friends in a group chat.

Step 2:
Explain the Rules.

Step 3:
The Rules:
Each person gets [X] number of song picks. (I recommend starting with a reasonable number, keeping in mind how many people are in your group. Also be aware that this gets addictive so you may want to bump the number as you reach the end.)
The picks will be made in a Snake Draft.  Youngest person to Oldest person, then Oldest person again, back down to Youngest, REPEAT, until everyone has made [X] number of picks.
*You may want to give people a certain amount of time to make a choice so that everyone’s not sitting around waiting for Aunt Ethel to decide on her favorite Doobie Brothers song.

As songs are selected, one person should be inputting the songs into a spreadsheet or a playlist of some kind.
When all the songs are selected, everyone gets 24 hours to make final changes.
And then share the final list/ link to the playlist with everyone!

Like I said, we did this earlier this year with extended family and our guidelines were “BEST SONG EVER.” Each person had to pick a song that THEY thought was the best song ever. Their criteria could be objective, or subjective. We had family members from 9 years old to 71 years old so there’s quite a variety of music in our playlist, but it was really fun to discuss and reminisce (and okay, argue a little bit) and spend socially distanced time together in a way that everyone can enjoy. And we can all listen to the Spotify playlist while we’re apart and think of each other; “Oh yeah, Aunt Ethel sure picks some crappy music, I miss her so much.”  And hopefully, the next time we are all back together, we can listen to it as a family, too.

For the holidays, we’re going to do a “FAVORITE HOLIDAY SONG” one and I know once again it will be a fun way to connect during the holidays when we can’t be together.

 If you do this with your family or friends over the holiday, I’d love to hear all about how it goes! You’ll find me on Instagram mostly. Or subscribe to my Inner Circle newsletter!

If you need some ideas for Christmas songs, I have a Christmas playlist that you can check out that I put together while writing my novella, The Matchmaking Christmas Spirit, available NOW in the Christmas Actually anthology.